I completed my Ph.D. in English concentrating in Cinema Studies here at the University of Pennsylvania. My research interests include film aesthetics, the history of Hollywood, European art cinema, International genre film (film noir, horror, crime), and film and literature. My disseratation, Grotesque Attractions: Genre History, Popular Entertainment, and the Origins of the Horror Filmexplores the development of the horror film genre in relation to popular entertainments (e.g., carnivals, sideshows, World Expos) and scientific discourses of modernity.

I have taught numerous film and literature courses at Penn including World Film History to 1945, Hollywood Cinema of the 1970s, American Crime Fiction, Hollywood Film Genres, Film Noir: From Page to Screen, and Film Adaptation.

As of August 2012, I am an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of Colorado Denver.